Love Made Visible
​​
Artwork by Amy Marques 

“Creation can be messy.”
Amy Marques learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She is a contributor to The Pride Roars, editor & artist for the Duets anthologies, and author & artist of the chapbook Are You Willing? and the found poetry book PARTS.
amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com
IG: @amyiscold
X: @amybookwhisper1
BS: @amymarques.bsky.social
FB: @Amarilis Amy

Messy Stovetop
Poetry by Katharine Weinmann


​I’m going downstairs to pretend to be a poet,
I say to my husband after dinner, after he laughingly remarked
that I can’t boil water without leaving a mess on the stovetop
for him to clean and polish.

He grabs me, hugs me, and looking straight into my eyes,
reminds me I’m doing it again. Not the making a mess,
but putting my value as a poet out there on the stovetop
of burnt offerings.

Last week, I mentioned to a friend that this new line of work,
one I’m leaning into, having lost my career to Covid,
one I’m hoping might again be my love made visible,
one steeped in solitude using the simple, still, and silent
noticings of my life, finding words for those places
before, beneath and beyond, means I need to dig deep within
for the regard and respect that once came so readily from outside.

Four years in, my self-doubt still sharp, burns like too much salt.
Rejection overflows the boiling pots. My inner critic crouching,
always ready to fan the flames.

Though I’ve yet to savor all the tastes of this newfound career,
or trust its promise to nourish and sustain, I’m developing a palate
from the words I read, the ones I write and polish.
Making poems that are more refined and taking greater risks.
Bone stirring memory, heart and soul and senses, putting me on the pages.

Messy stovetop for the trying and the tasting, the misses and the missing.
Improvising recipes for feeling pleasure from my effort,
self-worth from my persistence. My way of writing poems
like good food made with love.
Katharine Weinmann writes award-winning poetry, walks long distances, sees beauty in life’s imperfections and photographs its shimmer. Published internationally, she blogs at A Wabi Sabi Life and lives with her husband and their dog Walker, on the Canadian prairies. 
www.awabisabilife.ca
FB: @katharine.weinmann
IG: A.Wabi.Sabi.Life